Category: OS

Warning: Potentially Unsecure Scripts Below

Following up on a previous post trying to get the x11-less Ubuntu 25.10 set up with GUI management it looks like it’s possible to get Remote Desktop working. (Spice, unfortunately, has not been updated much in a long time and the install command seems to not work.)

This doesn’t work fully yet, still running into keychain issues, but it’s close. On Reddit, user LarkinZero has a script that resets the password on boot. (Below.) Now, this is a keychain change which doesn’t unlock on boot. Trying another script from jdonohoo on GitHub almost works but still getting an error, auto-login on or off.

With both scripts there are potential security issues such as having a password in plaintext and auto keyring unlocking (besides it still not working fully.) Will keep following up on this.

Now I will say, this does seem to unlock via just a couple CLI commands so this might be good enough. Will revisit soon.

Remote Credentials Update.

#!/bin/bash

SCHEMA="org.gnome.RemoteDesktop.RdpCredentials"
LABEL="GNOME Remote Desktop RDP credentials"
USERNAME="abc"
PASSWORD="123456"
EXPECTED_VALUE="{'username': <'$USERNAME'>, 'password': <'$PASSWORD'>}"

echo "Step 1: Clearing old credentials..."
secret-tool clear xdg:schema "$SCHEMA"

echo "Step 2: Storing new credentials..."
echo -n "$EXPECTED_VALUE" | secret-tool store --label="$LABEL" xdg:schema "$SCHEMA"

echo "Step 3: Verifying stored credentials..."
RESULT=$(secret-tool lookup xdg:schema "$SCHEMA")

if [ "$RESULT" == "$EXPECTED_VALUE" ]; then
    echo "Success: Stored credentials match the expected value."
    exit 0
else
    echo "Error: Stored credentials do not match the expected value."
    exit 1
fi

Keyring unlock script.

```
sudo apt-get install -y gnome-keyring libsecret-tools dbus-x11 vim
```

1. Place your unlock script here:
```
vim ~/.config/unlock-keyring.sh
```
```
#!/bin/bash

export DISPLAY=:0
export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/$(id -u)

password=$(<"$HOME/.keyring_pass")
/usr/bin/gnome-keyring-daemon --unlock <<< "$password"
```

```
chmod +x ~/.config/unlock-keyring.sh
```
2. Create keyring password file
```
vim ~/.keyring_pass
```
```
chmod 600 ~/.keyring_pass
```

3. Create the systemd unit:

```
vim ~/.config/systemd/user/unlock-keyring.service
```

```
[Unit]
Description=Unlock GNOME Keyring
After=graphical-session.target

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=%h/.config/unlock-keyring.sh
RemainAfterExit=true
Environment=DISPLAY=:0
Environment=XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/%U

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target
```

4. Enable the service:
```
systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable unlock-keyring.service
```
5. Ditch login keyring to make new one on next boot
```
rm ~/.local/share/keyrings/login.keyring
```
Set login passphrase to same as default / what you have in ~/.keyring_pass

Optional test:

```
systemctl --user start unlock-keyring.service
```

Ubuntu 25.10